


Boundaries

by MoonlightShines (Thatkillervibe)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/M, In Which Team Flash do Adult Stuff, Jealous Caitlin Snow, Pre-Relationship, Things get a little heated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:26:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23639035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkillervibe/pseuds/MoonlightShines
Summary: Caitlin and Cisco have an awkward encounter.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon & Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	Boundaries

“Excuse me? You’re Cisco’s friend, right?”

Caitlin turned around to look at the lady in the elevator of Cisco’s building. She had her hands full of groceries and a baby boy in a diaper strapped close to her chest. Caitlin recognized her in a vaguely, familiar way. She may have helped before during a late-night injury a couple of years ago—back when Caitlin didn’t know his apartment number.

Caitlin smiled. It wasn’t surprising that many people would know of Cisco in his building, every time she was over it seemed someone had something nice to say. Apparently, he worked faster than any hired technician when the air conditioning unit went down.

“Hi, yes, we work together! I’m on my way up to visit him now.”

“That’s nice,” the lady commented. She nodded at the elevator door. “Would you please press seven?”

Caitlin smiled and pressed the button for her and waved goodbye when the lady got to her floor. There were about a hundred and fifty questions Caitlin had to ask about the specifications of Cisco’s new tachyon diffuser for their pesky meta, and it was early enough in the morning she figured maybe she could convince him to stop at a bakery for a breakfast before heading to work.

On the tenth floor, Caitlin adjusted her work bag and turned the corner. Cisco’s apartment was already wide open. He was leaning against his doorframe in boxers and a t-shirt, his head pressed against his arm as he flirted with a stranger in the doorway—a hot redhead in a little black dress that was clearly yesterday’s outfit. Caitlin sucked in a breath and turned on her heel, fast-walking in the opposite direction before either could catch her staring. Her face began to flush as she tried to figure out her next move. Not once in her years of turning up unexpectedly had she accidentally walked in on Cisco with somebody.

The woman passed by Caitlin while waiting for the elevator, revealing Cisco’s hickey on her neck. Caitlin dropped her workbag. The other lady turned around as all of Caitlin’s papers went flying in the hallway and Caitlin swore under her breath, her face turning as red as the other woman’s hair.

“I’m sorry! Did I bump into you? Let me help you with that!”

“No, I dropped them. You don’t have to help,” Caitlin tried to protest, but the two ended up crouched down together, amassing the lost files with Cisco’s handwriting all over them.

Caitlin bit her inner cheek and closed her eyes when she heard a third voice join them in the hallway.

“Caitlin?” Cisco’s eyes widened as he collected her bag from the floor. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

“Hi. I thought, um.” Caitlin brushed the hair out of her face as she stood up and tried to shove his tachyon diffuser blueprints back into the bag he held open. She glanced at the redhead.

“Carpooling. For work. I’m sorry, I should’ve asked first.”

“No it’s fine—” he said after an awkward moment.

 _"I’ve got to go,"_ The redhead mouthed, scurrying down the staircase. Cisco didn’t seem too bothered. He led Caitlin back to his place. She braced her bag to her chest and tried not to think too hard. “Let me get dressed first?” He closed the front door.

“Sure,” Caitlin said faintly, sitting on his couch. “Yes, of course.”

~.~

At Jitters, Caitlin fiddled with her ripped sugar packet beside her coffee until Cisco returned from the queue. He slid a plate with a croissant under her nose. 

“Oh.” She looked up. “Thank you.”

“So…” Cisco said after screwing on his lid to his to-go cup.

“So…” Caitlin echoed.

“Okay so, this morning was awkward. Can we agree it was awkward so we can get over it?”

Caitlin’s relaxed immediately. _“Please.”_

Finally, her stomach grumbled as if knowing her best friend wasn’t mad at her meant permission to be hungry again. She tore off the edge of her croissant and stuffed it in her mouth. “I didn’t know you were dating again. What’s her name?”

  
Cisco gave her a look. “You and I both know that wasn’t a date.”

Caitlin blushed for what felt like the fifth time that morning, remembering that hickey. He could’ve at least humoured her. “Well,” she managed around her mouthful until she swallowed it down. “I didn’t know you were doing that either. I thought you said you were looking for—” 

Cisco groaned, slumping against the table. “Yeah, yeah. A wife. A white picket fence with 2.5 children. I remember.”

“So, are you going to call her?”

“I don’t even have her number.”

“It’s not like you wouldn’t be able to find it if you tried.” Caitlin tore off another piece. “Her hair was really red. She’d be easy to find the non-creepy way too.” 

“Oh my god. Caitlin, stop.”

“What?” Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “She wasn’t good?”

“Oh my god,” Cisco said again, an edge to his tone. He dragged his hand over his face. “Caitlin, don’t do this.”

She snickered a little. “How many rounds did you go? Was she _red hot?”_ Okay, that one was from Frost.

“Can we _please_ stop?”

Caitlin glanced up from where she was picking at her food. “Am I bothering you?”

“Yes! Kind of!”

She frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Cisco downed the rest of his drink. “It’s making me uncomfortable, talking this with you.”

“Fine,” she said and dropped the subject, a little hurt. It was weird. Cisco had never had any problem discussing at length about Kendra or Cynthia or Julian or Ronnie before. She reached into her work bag and splayed his work over the table. “I have questions about the tachyon diffuser.”

Cisco sighed with relief at the change of topic, scooting his barstool to sit next to her. His eyes crinkled happily when she jumped right in, and by the time they were back at work as far as she knew, the weird conversation was archived away.

~.~

  
Cisco knocked on the door to the med bay at the end of the day with a worrisome look on his face.

“What’s the matter?”

He walked into the room and closed the glass door behind him, without so much as a word. He folded his arms and continued to not say anything. It was like he was still figuring it out in his brain. A cold and slimy feeling slithered down to her stomach. She has seen that look before—it was one he’d give to a Wells sometimes when they got on his nerves. Hard eyes and a stony face that didn’t belong there, directed at her.

“Caitlin.” Even worse, his tone was unbelievably gentle. “Boundaries. Caitlin—We need boundaries.”

“Boundaries?”

“You’ve been sitting in your corner of the cortex all day silently judging me for having casual sex and that’s wrong.”

Caitlin jumped up from her chair and balked. _“Excuse me?”_

“ _’ Get her number, Cisco. Go talk to her, Cisco. She’s such a redhead Cisco_ ,” he repeated mockingly, pitching his voice.

“I didn’t sound like that.”

" _Yes_ , you—" He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not—” he took a breath and calmed down, looking her in the eyes. “I don’t want to talk about my sex life or my love life or really—anything that has remotely to do with any of that with you.”

Caitlin took a step back, stung. She narrowed her eyes, hugging her arms around herself. “I’m sorry I walked in on your one nightstand. I should’ve called first. You always knocked or texted before you breached over and I should’ve applied the same courtesy.”

He laughed a little. “Yeah. Well.”

Caitlin bit her lip, staring at him from the corner of her eye as they stood on opposite sides of her table. “I won’t do it again,” she said, again. There was something in the way he was looking at her that had her heart hammering in her chest. “I never meant to bother you so much. At all.” She didn’t quite know why she sounded like she was defending herself.

He sighed again, his hand in his hair. “I know. But—boundaries, Caitlin. Please. I need it.”

 _Why?_ “Yeah, Cisco. Whatever you need. I get it.”

She stared at him, as did he. Eventually, she cracked a timid smile and opened her arms. He hugged her briefly. “We’re fine, right?” she asked, pulling back to look at him directly.

Cisco chuckled, rolling his eyes at themselves fondly. “We’re totally fine.”

~.~

Caitlin went to bed that night unable to sleep. She stared at her ceiling, thinking about the way Cisco leaned against the door to his apartment, talking to the woman. Thinking about his sex hair and the sheets that spilled over his bed from his ajar bedroom as she sat on the couch, waiting.

She thought about his relationship with Cynthia and the Earth-19 cube with his girlfriend’s Christmas message, and the red that climbed up his face as he tried to shut it off. She thought about how little he seemed to eye-fuck Kamilla in that same way when they were in the same room and still together. She thought about the mark on the woman’s neck and what he did to get it there, the way he must’ve used his mouth. She thought about his hands on the woman's body and the way they must’ve met. 

She thought of Cisco at some nightclub alone, flirting with a girl to bring to bed and wondered how many times he’d done just that before coming to her place. Or sitting on her med cot or snoozing in her cortex seat. She thought about the heated, pissed off look in his eye when he talked to her. The tick in his jaw, the gentle way he still somehow said her name. She thought about the hug, the arms around her when he squeezed, then let go. 

Caitlin shifted her legs, stuck with sweat to her sheets, and removed her panties; they were soaked between them.

_Boundaries._ Maybe now, Caitlin understood why they may be needed.

**Author's Note:**

> I may add another chapter if there's interest?


End file.
